It is a myth that Scots pay more tax than the English

Putting aside the merits or not of this, what it neglects to highlight is that income tax is only one element of taxation. Scottish council taxpayers, for example, are on average paying £276 a year less than they would in England and £552 less than in Wales. The average council tax bill for every band is cheaper in Scotland than either England or Wales. Average water charges are also lower in Scotland than the rest of the UK.

Those parties also forget to mention the free tuition enjoyed by Scottish students, with those south of the Border having to pay over £9,000 a year. Prescription fees in England are also over £9 per item, while in Scotland they are free.

Let us also not also forget that better-funded public services are a key element that make somewhere an attractive place to live.

Most Scottish taxpayers pay less income tax than their English neighbours, but for those with the broadest shoulders who pay more, let us not forget the likes of lower council tax, lower water charges, free university fees and free bus travel for pensioners and young people.

Alex Orr, Edinburgh.

• THE governance of our country over the past 16 years by an SNP-dominated parliament has, in the party's determination to be different, proved to be extremely costly to the extent where it would appear financial measures require to be taken to prevent our country from facing near bankruptcy.

Although the SNP likes to quote that some of us are paying less tax than our English equivalents, the truth is that the vast majority of us living north of the Border are being taxed more for just living here. In their desire to be different it would appear that the SNP has created another world first, a "Scottish tax".

Thank you, SNP.

W MacIntyre, East Kilbride.

Read more: SNP should stop the pipe dreams and focus on helping the poor

Westminster's rap sheet

ANGUS MacEachran’s criticism of the Scottish Parliament (Letters, December 18) is nothing, if not comprehensive, extending even to the building itself. However, his argument demands an alternative, which can only be to return all Scottish affairs to Westminster.

Mr MacEachran’s rap sheet includes all the old favourites - thank goodness for the ferries - but fails to acknowledge the shortcomings of Westminster, from the MPs’ expenses scandal to the overspends managed through control of a sovereign currency which can always be added to should the need arise. For instance, despite a development project of 10 years, there is still no date for the British Army's troubled Ajax armoured reconnaissance vehicle. This has been beset by overspending and technical troubles costing £4 billion so far. The Taxpayers Alliance found that 10 other government projects had a collective cost overrun of £17.2bn. As I said, thank goodness for the ferries.

While he may find ironic the amount of newsprint The Herald has wasted on my musings over the years, I am disappointed that Mr MacEachran doesn’t recognise a greater irony which was after all a substantial part of the argument of my last letter (December 15). Namely, that the Scottish Parliament is the creation of Westminster, which continues to exercise control over it, and indeed, given recent events, an increasingly close control. Perhaps he would do well to consider why Westminster doesn’t just repeal the Scotland Act and be done with it. Or could it be that even the present UK Government recognises the foolishness of this, given such as the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2021/22 finding that two-thirds of respondents trust the Scottish Government to work in Scotland's best interests, compared with 22% who trust the UK Government to do so?

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.

Finance Secretary Shon Robison (Image: Getty)

Incompetence of the SNP

IT seems that Humza Yousaf and Shona Robison (or rather their taxpayer-funded spin doctor teams) spent the weekend preparing us for the Scottish budget by churning out "it wisnae me, it was wicked Westminster" messaging. But is there anyone left in Scotland, after 15 years of the SNP establishment in control of every aspect of domestic spending, naive enough to buy this narrative?

Westminster's Barnet Formula is generous to Scotland with more than £2,000 more per head allocated than other parts of the UK. The recent Westminster budget provided Ms Robison with an additional £525 million to spend. But, sadly, it seems SNP financial incompetence means expenditure massively exceeds income, with Scotland facing a £1.5 billion black hole. Generous yet apparently poorly-costed public sector pay increases were hastily agreed, apparently simply to claim settlements were reached here before in England. The fiasco that is SNP new ferries procurement is well known. Tens of millions are wasted on foreign consuls and overseas aid (taken from domestic budgets) that duplicate existing UK expenditure. Holyrood ministers, who have an exclusively domestic remit, have flown the equivalent of 10 times around the world in the past year. Plus, Mr Yousaf freezes council tax, as one in four Scottish councils fear bankruptcy, without the ability to top up shortfalls from central funding. Sadly, the list goes on and on.

Underpinning all of this is the SNP preference for populist universal benefits rather than targeting according to need, as elsewhere in the UK: a short-term tactic that may "buy" votes but neither protects our public services nor balances the books.

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

Bribing voters will not work

ALTHOUGH we do not have the Scottish budget detail we already have an indication that public services will deteriorate further with no recruitment and potentially voluntary redundancies.

The Scottish Government has already said that the care reforms will have to be delayed and yet we have recently had spending announcements ahead of the budget being published including freezing council tax and improved funding for student loans.

This is now a government desperately trying to hand out sweeteners to voters whilst introducing cuts that will fundamentally harm the delivery of public services but that's okay because local government will be blamed as will Westminster.

Bribing voters will no longer work and the Government should resign and give voters the opportunity to decide Scotland's future.

Bill Eadie, Giffnock.

Read more: Policing can't be done on the cheap. Get bobbies back on the beat

The Wild West revisited

MOST people are horrified by the current atrocities in Gaza.

However, I do not think it is a coincidence that in 1999, British Gas discovered the existence of natural gas in the Gaza Marine fields only 20 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

It is estimated this field could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (EgyptOil-Gas.com, April 5, 2018).

As an ignorant wean I remember watching black and white TV movies featuring exciting tales of "Cowboys and Indians". I did not realise then that it was a cleaned-up version of (mostly European) invaders of north America driving indigenous people off their land and eventually into ghettoes/reserves.

So I was not surprised by news reports of refugee Palestinians being told (by the Israeli army) that for more safety they should move to an already-overcrowded southern Gaza. There, deliberate and indiscriminate blanket bombing from the air, by the Israeli government, of the civilian populations meant the mass murder of tens of thousands, many of them children, obviously not terrorists.

If they survive long enough to remember this traumatic terror from the air then it should not surprise us if they become the next generation of freedom fighters.

Norman Lockhart, Innerleithen.

• THERE has been much talk by western politicians of the need for a two-state solution to facilitate peace between Israel and Palestine. However, the Israeli Prime Minister and the Israeli Ambassador to the UK have both said that a self-governing Palestinian state will not be allowed by Israel.

The Israeli Government focus continues to be the indiscriminate destruction of the infrastructure in Gaza and the killing and maiming of thousands of innocent men, women and children, whilst using the avowed destruction of Hamas as an excuse.

While Israel might be able to kill all current Hamas combatants (very doubtful), it continues to build justified anger and a thirst for revenge amongst the two million-plus Palestinians in Gaza. Hamas.2 will emerge angrier and more determined than ever, not only in Gaza but in the West Bank.

The only way that Israel can ensure no resistance in Gaza is to murder every Palestinian who lives there. One wonders if this is not the eventual aim of the current Israeli Government.

David Howie, Dunblane.